Collective Effort Model Several researchers have constructed theoretical ac- counts to explain the findings about when social loafing is more or less likely to occur. The most influential of these is the collective effort model. This model asserts that individuals will try hard on a collective task when they think their efforts will help them achieve outcomes they personally value. If the outcome is important to individual members of the group and if they believe they can help achieve the desired outcome, they are less likely to socially loaf. In fact, in these cases, they may even engage in social compensation by in- creasing their efforts on collective tasks to try to compensate for the anticipated social loafing or poor performance of other group members. The next time you work on a group project, such as a paper that you and several other students are supposed to write together, consider the factors that increase and decrease social loafing and try to change aspects of the situation so that all group members are motivated to do their share of the work.